• $1.6 MILLION IN ART SALES - VIRTUAL ART FAIR BECOMES A PERMANENT FIXTURE POST-COVID FOR 2021.

Auckland Art Fair is pleased to announce that more than NZ$1.6 million of art was sold as a result of the Virtual Art Fair staged in May during New Zealand’s lockdown, with all proceeds going to the artists and their galleries.

Looking forward, North Port Events, owners of the Auckland Art Fair, are delighted to confirm their intention to hold a live Auckland Art Fair at The Cloud from 24 - 28 February 2021 and also a second Virtual Art Fair, online from 3 - 14 November 2021.

The online edition of Auckland Art Fair was developed in response to the cancellation of the 2020 Fair, scheduled to take place at The Cloud from 29 April - 3 May 2020.

Co-directors, Stephanie Post and Hayley White described the event as, “a celebration, as best we could, of the talent and diversity of art-making in our region - across New Zealand and Australia, and also around the wider Pacific Rim region.” They go on to say, “It was also our hope that wherever possible, people would support artists by purchasing a work and, in this respect, our expectations have been exceed. We would like to sincerely thank everyone who purchased a work of art through the Fair, and all the artists and galleries who got behind this new format.” The online edition gathered 35 galleries from New Zealand and Australia, plus one each from China and the UK, who together displayed 527 works of art by 193 artists all viewable for free online. The galleries who participated in the Virtual Art Fair, and many of the works of art they presented, can be seen at https://artfair.co.nz. During the 18 days that the Fair was online, there were 17,785 visits by 13,082 individuals, who viewed 794,555 pages.

Coming at a time during which exhibitions and events nationwide had been cancelled as a result of Covid-19, when New Zealand and much of Australia were in lockdown and facing grave economic consequences and the arts and culture sectors are particularly hurting, these are very encouraging results.

Auckland Art Fair look forward to bringing together new collectors, new artists and new galleries in 2021. Tickets will go on sale in November at artfair.co.nz/.